NOR First Cut Announcement

[lawlord]

I received my notice today (about 45 min. ago). WD and SI will be conducted the week beginning October 20th with the WD concluding December 2008 and the SI concluding mid- February 2009. Good luck to all.

[Interested]

Got mine too (i.e., "congratulations! You have met the criteria to proceed ..." If anyone's still checking on the alphabetical release issue mentioned earlier in this thread, my last name begins w/ a "G." Good luck, all.

[oldjag]

I just received a call from a fried who got his e-mail saying that he had been accepted and will go on to the WD and SI. Good luck to all of you still waiting--we need all the help we can get-- ;D

I am just glad that I don't have to do the waiting and wondering. I'm just getting too damn old--no matter what Pixie may say

[aljkeb123]

I just got this and thought I would post it for those who may be interested in how it looks.

Congratulations! You have met the criteria to proceed to the remaining
assessment parts of the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) examination consisting of
the Written Demonstration (WD) and Structured Interview (SI) described below.

Written Demonstration (WD): The purpose of the WD is to evaluate your ability to
prepare a clear, concise, and well-reasoned legal decision of the type that one
might be expected to write if employed as an ALJ. The WD is an assessment
exercise that is conducted in a proctored environment and is designed to
evaluate your abilities in the following four competencies: (1) Reasoning, (2)
Decision Making, (3) Judicial Analysis, and (4) Writing. You will take the
examination using a laptop computer provided by the U.S. Office of Personnel
Management (OPM). Although the actual WD will last approximately four (4)
hours, you should plan to arrive at least 30 minutes early to allow time to
clear building security; you should also allow time after the test is concluded
to complete certain administrative requirements.

Structured Interview (SI): The objective of the SI is to evaluate your responses
regarding situations related to being an ALJ. A panel of experts consisting of
an OPM chairperson, a sitting ALJ, and a private attorney will conduct the
interview and evaluate your responses. The interview will last approximately
one hour and is designed to evaluate your abilities in the following seven
competencies: (1) Reasoning, (2) Decision Making, (3) Self-Management, (4)
Interpersonal Skills, (5) Oral Communication, (6) Stress Tolerance, and (7)
Judicial Management.

You will receive separate scheduling notices informing you of the date, time,
and location of the WD and SI, as well as other instructions about the process.
The WD and SI will be conducted on different, non-consecutive days beginning the
week of October 20, 2008, with the WD concluding in early December 2008 and the
SI concluding in mid-February 2009. Applicants must complete the WD before they
can undertake the SI. Both assessments will be administered in Washington, DC.
Attendance will be at your own expense.

Applicants who complete both assessment processes will be notified of their
final ratings when all applicants have completed these exercises. Those who
receive "eligible" ratings will be added to the existing ALJ register which will
be used as a source of names to make referrals to agencies for employment
consideration.

Sincerely,

Administrative Law Judge Examining Office

PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS EMAIL MESSAGE. IT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED.

[traceb]

Do you think we should respond to the e-mail message?

[junebug]

I just got my congratulations email. Whew. I got the email about 1:21 pm EST. I'm a government lawyer with 2 years of federal service. Prior to joining the government; I worked for a litigation defense firm for about 5 years. I also completed a federal clerkship.

[latinlawyer]

Well, I also received the "Congratulations" email this afternoon. My congratulations to all others that received it.

To those who did not make it, from my review of posts to this board, it is clear that there is an element of randomness, and of ability marketing your own accomplisments within a set of defined parameters, that greatly affects the outcome.

[ldtajesq]

Got my congrats also. Californiagirl, I hope you made it, b/c I remember that you (and I) were nervously checking our emails everyday for the results. Of course, today, I decided not to check. My friend had to call me to tell me that the results were released. Anyway, good luck to anyone still awaiting results.

[Deleted]

Got my "Congratulations" e-mail today as well. The second time around was the charm. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to compete.

To Mississippi above: I don't have nearly the experience that you do. The fact that I get to test and you don't is really a testament to the arbitrariness of the process.

Don't let PM get you down. I'll send you a personal e-mail and tell you what I think of that guy. I will say this though: When someone gets some bad news is not the time to take a cheap shot. What does that tell you about the character of that person?

Regardless, the OPM lottery hit for me this time. I was lucky.

Good luck to all!

[flannery]

As promised, I told you I would advise on my norr at this stage, fair weather or foul: this afternoon, I got invited to take the written test and interview. For those of you who didn't, try again. The COSS seems committed to building up the ALJ corps. In the meantime, I feel it was Lady Luck who was on my side more than anything else, but I do have to admit, I exerted a tremendous amount of energy revising my original materials. . .

[pm]

Oct 1, 2008 18:22:30 GMT -5 robg said:

Got my "Congratulations" e-mail today as well. The second time around was the charm. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to compete.

To Mississippi above: I don't have nearly the experience that you do. The fact that I get to test and you don't is really a testament to the arbitrariness of the process.

Don't let PM get you down. I'll send you a personal e-mail and tell you what I think of that guy. I will say this though: When someone gets some bad news is not the time to take a cheap shot. What does that tell you about the character of that person?

Regardless, the OPM lottery hit for me this time. I was lucky.

Good luck to all!

The same experience does not equal the same score in law school, on the bar exam or on the ALJ exam.

Two people can attend the same law school, take the same classes, take the same tests and get different scores. You can either conclude that is due to "randomness" or you can try to analyze the difference in the results a little more carefully.

[reapplicant]

As someone who was rejected twice, I congratulate those who made it. I particularly congratulate those who were rejected the first time and made it this time. I don't expect another cert for years, and so I will go back to directing my energy toward other things.

The bottom line is those of us who were rejected will always think of the selection process as random. Those who were accepted will think of the process as fair. There is no way either group is going to persuade the other of the correctness of their position.

[californiagirl]

No, Idajesq, I didn't make it this time. I got my rejection notice on Monday and posted it here earlier (page 1, I think). Thanks for thinking of me....And congratulations!!!! to you all who made it!! That's fantastic! Maybe next time for me, whenever that it.

[zero]

Oct 2, 2008 8:29:57 GMT -5 reapplicant said:

The bottom line is those of us who were rejected will always think of the selection process as random. Those who were accepted will think of the process as fair. There is no way either group is going to persuade the other of the correctness of their position.

I have no idea whether the system is random or fair. But we should all avoid being critical of the people who got rejected. A few people last time around made some (I think) unfair assumptions about the rejected applications. Nobody really knows. But I hope the people who do get jobs show as much grace on the bench as this person has.

[nonamouse]

Oct 2, 2008 11:21:15 GMT -5 californiagirl said:

No, Idajesq, I didn't make it this time. I got my rejection notice on Monday and posted it here earlier (page 1, I think). Thanks for thinking of me....And congratulations!!!! to you all who made it!! That's fantastic! Maybe next time for me, whenever that it.

Obviously, I have not seen your ARs, but I have a suggestion if you plan to reapply. I told the same thing to some people who have now made the initial cut on their 2nd try.

Once the emotional wave has passed, take a calm, unpressured look at the way that you wrote up your ARs. Did you write them for the likely audience (non-legal background, human resource type who may be looking only for the use of the descriptors that they used in the questions)? Were the sentences short and to the point? Did you keep the paragraphs short and tight also? Did you translate any legal jargon for a non-legal audience? Assume that your reader knows nothing about what lawyers do because we don't know who at OPM is scoring the applications. Did you directly connect all of your accomplishments back to the question asked in some manner rather than assuming the reader would know how it fit into a particular category?

I know 3 very smart and accomplished people who did not get through to testing the last time when they were rushed, but this time after some careful rewrites they made the cut with basically the exact same professional experience. They just described it better this time because they were able to let the emotions die down and look at it carefully over many months. When the announcement posted all they had to do was copy and paste into the form and hit submit.

Stay positive and be ready for the next announcement.

[ALJD]

Oct 2, 2008 12:47:02 GMT -5 zero said:

I have no idea whether the system is random or fair. But we should all avoid being critical of the people who got rejected. A few people last time around made some (I think) unfair assumptions about the rejected applications. Nobody really knows. But I hope the people who do get jobs show as much grace on the bench as this person has.

Folks,

I agree with Zero's assessment completely. This board was founded in part to provide a civilized forum where we can exchange information regarding the ALJ hiring process/work conditions in peace.

We're all professionals here, and so far, I think everyone has done their best to be mutually supportive and being considerate. Unfortunately, because we're in an anonyomous forum and there's very little context as to the individuals behind the posts, one person's way of saying "hang in there" can be misconstrued as an insult by another person. I think most of us here mean well, but let's all do our best to be sensitive to other people's feelings in this time of heightened stress.

So as we advance into another cycle of ALJ testing and hiring, I would just like to thank all the posters for making this forum an informative and civilized place to be, and let's all support each other through another cycle of this madness.

[southernmiss]

I did not make it last time-I did this time. I used the time between announcements to review my last application's answers. I refined them, used the words in the announcement at least once, and while it was not informal, I spoke as if someone were reading it in lieu of my speaking it. The hardest part was paring it down because I had the wrong number of keystrokes. As I am a ODAR lawyer, I considered my DW skills to be a slam dunk. I am also a Senior Attorney, so I used that for Decision Making. Other than that, though, I used outside accomplishments/jobs/organizations to reflect my abilities. I do think it is best to be short and sweet. Think of it-these poor people are reading the same stuff over and over. They need the key words, the gist of what you did and how it fits into the ARs. If you have any legal work that you did before you started working for the government (assuming you do) throw that in for at least one or two of the ARs.

My attitude is this- this is the first rung of the ladder. There are esentially two more difficult rungs to climb, then the ODAR interview, which I gather is not too bad, and then, my friends, it is up to the fates.

I read where some who have tried twice have given up. You'll get over it. Just keep trying. Persistence pays.

Good luck to those who made the cut.